Was out on my usual Sunday morning ride this week and something strange happened.

I was feeling good when I left (Had an easy-ish week after a big effort for a charity ride thing the previous sunday...think blood in urine after sort of effort) and had a great ride till about half way. I had just fired up a small but steep hill (Grant street for the Perthites) attempting to beat my previous time/speed up there. Anyway, not long after and I just couldn't ride any further...totally cooked...I just turned back towards home at a stupidly slow pace and gradually started feeling better as time passed. It was still a huge effort though.

I'd like to be increasing my distance by this stage and falling over at 26km into a 54km ride is not right. So I am thinking I am running out of fuel or something. My pace isn't that quick and as a rule I haven't taken anything other than water with me. Mainly because I don't feel like I understand what sort of stuff I need and I had thought taking heaps of whatever would couteract the training.

So yeah I have no clue but it's very unpleasant and I'd like to get better and know where I'm going wrong. I'm a bit worried that I may have some sort of underlying thing going on after the blood from the previous week...I did read though that its probably nothing to worry about as it went away within two/three days.

Have linked my workout data (not sure how useful it is...I only look to see how far and how fast.) http://app.strava.com/rides/2161833; [url]http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/27186102[\url] *Please note it didn't recorord the last few km for some reason*

Not enough info to go by. You need to consider everything - other medical conditions, heavy week at work, out late the night before on the booze, hydration and fuel level at start, months you have been riding and longer exercise history. If you have been riding regularly for more than 3 months, you should be able to do 2 hours on only water, but you may weaken during the last 30-50 minutes, but not considerably if you had as much as two weet-bix before.

Guide for hydration is thus: before you start, drink as much fluid as you pee'd off overnight, while riding drink as much as you sweat, with intake every 15-20 minutes. For rides over 1hr in temperate climates and 30-45 minutes in warmer climates, electrolyte is recommended.

Food intake when riding. For rides <60 minutes, water is ok, if the intensity is high, drink a 6% carb electrolyte powerade and gatorade. For longer rides, use the same electrolyte and eat enough to give yourself 1g carbohydrate per /kg bodyweight/hr all up.

i.e. if you weigh 75kg- if you drink 500mls electrolyte, that will have 500g*0.06 = 30g carb and you need another 45 g from food.- a jam sandwich (two regular slices of white bread and a heaped teaspoon of jam) has about 45ga medium banana has 20g, muesli bars are about half carbohydrate by weight (45g bar has 22g), jelly beans are essentially all carbohydrate by wt, 30-35g sports gels have around 25g carb.

I would always take food if I am riding for longer than an hour, typically I need to eat at least every 40 minutes if I'm working hard (racing). I usually carry gels for racing, I like Gu and I know that eating one every 40 minutes will usually be enough to keep me going. When I'm training I take whatever I feel like, fruit cake, gels, muesli bars, power bars, bananas (if I'm feeling wealthy), jelly lollies, jam sandwiches etc. I also usually take two water bottles, one containing sports drink, and the other containing plain water. Drink a bit of sports drink and a bit of water at least every 20 minutes. I can happily eat most things when I'm on the bike, but I know people who can't stomach solid food, or can't stand to eat gels, so I'm pretty lucky.

You really just need to experiment and see what works best for you.

If you are doing regular hard rides you should probably be thinking more carefully about pre and post ride nutrition as well.

If you are usually fine, and you suddenly aren't, then it might also be worth having a chat to your doctor to rule out any medical conditions that might be affecting performance.

I've no other health concerns, no late nights and no booze. I have toddler aged identical twins so I very rarely drink these days.

Relevent stuff I suppose is no breakfast and I don't usually eat before a ride. I did move ~2m^3 of renovation rubble on Saturday afternoon. Been riding regularaly for about 18months now.

So sounds like I have to start fueling myself a bit better. I'll take some stuff with me next time and start experimenting. I'm interested in what everyone else does because I want to do some racing next year and be competitve so got to get it right.

Higher intensity rides, even 45 minutes, first thing in the morning really need energy intake beforehand, even if a few nuts and fruit, or fruit cake or cereal or toast, and even 6% electrolyte (even cordial will do it); though nothing with a lot of protein and fat. And don't forget the water to replace your pee. It is common to pee off 20% of your blood volume overnight. That's a serious compromise to getting oxygen and glucose to your muscles, and brain, when exercising.

There's a lot of talk about burning more fat if you don't eat before morning exercise, but that is only practical at low to moderate intensities.

If you want to race, watching your body weight (fat) is a big advantage. And you'd benefit from buying or borrowing a $40 set of digital kitchen scales (from BigW or similar.)If you use them for a few weeks, you'll eventually get intuitive on how many grams of carb or total Calories are in a certain portion of foods you commonly eat. Lance Armstrong has said the thing he did every day was weigh himself first thing in the morning, and that dictated how he was going to eat.

No breakfast?! That's it for sure. I've done exactly that and had to have a good lie down half way home

I now always start with muesli now. That's good for up to 100km if the pace is not too demanding.Muesli bars are good but I have to stop to eat them. Bananas are natures gems the food of gods.Dried fruit is ok in small amounts. I love dried apricots but they are shart fuel .

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